


Inclusively players

by Petra



Category: Slings & Arrows
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-04
Updated: 2008-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-04 03:42:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, both staged by and starring Darren Nichols and Geoffrey Tennant, March 3-8, 1981. Call 555-3954 or visit the university box office for ticket information.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inclusively players

"I suppose you'll want to play Hamlet," Darren said.

"What for?" Geoffrey pulled the classic skull-addressing pose, gloves and all, then dropped it. "Frost said, 'Keep it modern, Tennant,' so I think he's expecting me to go that route. I'd rather surprise him -- and pass the practicum -- by following the letter of the assignment."

Darren folded his arms and walked more quickly. The trouble with talking with Geoffrey outside in winter was that the conversation often grew engrossing enough to let them both freeze half to death before they reached either its end or anywhere they'd been going. "Fine. Which role have you chosen for me, then?"

Geoffrey fumbled in the pockets of his coat and pulled out a quarter. "It's our joint project; it wouldn't be fair to cast you without asking you first. Tell you what -- heads --"

"-- you're Rosencrantz. Of course." Darren smiled. "Toss it, then."

Geoffrey caught the coin in midair. "Actually," he said, ignoring Darren's splutter of protest, "not to be overambitious --"

"Bullshit," Darren said. "When are you anything else?"

"-- but I'd hate being roped into one or the other."

"We could work it out in rehearsals If you really can't decide," Darren said, frowning at him. "But only if it doesn't end up like Othello."

Geoffrey laughed and put the coin back in his pocket. "The self-tanning stuff was your idea."

"And if you'd made up your mind more than a week in advance, it wouldn't have been an issue."

"I have made up my mind," Geoffrey said. "I want to play both of them."

"Leaving me what?" Darren spread his hands. "Shall I be your Hamlet, your Polonius, your Claudius?"

"My Gertrude, my Ophelia?" Geoffrey made a show of studying him, walking around him in measured paces despite the January winds. "That's not quite what I was thinking, either."

"Do enlighten me." Darren wrapped his scarf more tightly. "You're not my only option, you know." The only other person who might possibly collaborate with him on a project of the appropriate magnitude was David, and he was fascinated with presenting translations of commedia dell'arte in modern dress without the faintest glimmer of presentation or even irony. Harlequin or Ophelia -- what a choice.

Besides, working with David was nothing at all like working with Geoffrey. David's skills were passable, but he had all the charisma of a potato. The problem with David would be feigning interest; the problem with Geoffrey had always been feigning disinterest.

Geoffrey shook his head. "We'll trade off."

Darren laughed and took off his steamed glasses. "Excuse me? Are you, by any chance, Geoffrey Tennant?"

And of course it was only a straight line to him, the chance to take a bow and say, "At your service."

"But Mister Tennant, what an extravagant thought." Darren took out his copy of the play and shook it at him. "Twice as many lines to master. Twice as much blocking."

"As though any of it would work if we didn't both know all of it." Geoffrey waved this off impatiently. "And at the beginning of the performance --"

"We flip a coin." Darren nodded. "But I'm not going to listen to you blustering on every night about logic and postulates just because that's how the coin falls."

Geoffrey took the script from him. "And I don't want to hear you stammering your way through 'That's why I don't think about it' every damned night, either. So it's settled?"

"I'm not sure," Darren said, although he was. Still, it would be a damned shame to waste a chance to argue. Anything that made Geoffrey's magnificent attention focus on him for a moment, rather than the production in his head, was worth the effort -- and the occasional dueling scar. "Are you going to bog this whole thing down with Elizabethan dress, or aren't you?"

"Why?" Geoffrey asked, narrowing his eyes. "We're not doing some abstract atrocity like the scenes you made Yolanda and Nelson do as Beatrice and Benedick with the hot pink half-heart cutout -- things."

"That was three years ago." Darren shook his head. "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern shouldn't belong, that's all -- and if we're going to have to do doubles of the costuming, it's better to keep it --" he spread his hands. "Simple."

Geoffrey grabbed his hand and shook it. "We trade parts; we keep the costumes simple. Done."

"Excellent." Darren took his script back and turned away to hide his smile. "We'll just have to find high heels in our sizes --"

"Christ." Geoffrey caught him by the shoulder. "If you have to put Gertrude in them, fine, or -- Ophelia even -- but I don't care what sort of --"

Darren rolled his eyes with an irritation he didn't feel in the least. "You're so limited, Geoffrey."

The patently false accusation put color in his cheeks, even more than the cold had; Darren had to suppress a smile. "I'm not strutting around the stage in fucking pumps. You want to do the whole thing in drag, you find yourself some other Guildenstern."

"Or Rosencrantz," Darren reminded him.

"I said simple. Hell, you said simple."

"Millions of women -- could easily be wrong," Darren said, adjusting his sentence in midstream. "And they would indubitably consider pumps the simplest part of their wardrobe."

"No," Geoffrey said, firmly.

Darren held up his mittened hands in mock surrender. "All right, no drag. But they are Hamlet's friends from university, after all, and should be garbed accordingly."

Geoffrey turned around in a quick circle, surveying the quadrangle and its inhabitants. "Rumpled shirts that haven't seen a washer for a semester?"

"Perhaps -- not precisely modern dress, but tie-dye." Darren kept himself from smiling as Geoffrey's eyes widened. "Simple, visually confusing to an extent -- and easy to make -- match. More or less."

"Hamlet's not a hippie."

"Traditionalist." Darren clucked his tongue. "It would provide an alternate explanation for the antic disposition."

"I think 'he's not crazy, he's having an acid flashback' will be hard for anyone to get across in the few lines left to Hamlet in this play."

When in doubt, resort to heartfelt flattery. "You could do it," Darren said, and Geoffrey stopped and looked at him.

Sincerity in delivering lines had never been one of Darren's strong suits, but apparently it worked better when he was relatively sure he was telling the truth. "Maybe," Geoffrey said, "but that's a moot point."

"Ah, if only we had a company composed of you," Darren said, meaning it far too much for anyone to take him seriously, and Geoffrey laughed hollowly.

"I'd settle for one of me to be in charge of the costumes to keep you out of it. Is Hamlet a refugee from Woodstock, too?"

"Not so obviously." Darren tugged at his hair which was in need of a trim. "He's outgrown some of his youthful pursuits --"

"-- set aside the bong and spliff --"

"-- and turned to the -- well, not bourgeois, precisely, but the pursuit of justice and following in his father's footsteps. Inexpertly worn yuppie garb."

Geoffrey laughed. "A thrift store suit, then."

"Scuffed shoes. And perhaps love beads, peeking out." Darren smiled at the mental image. "And if it's the 1960's, Gertrude should have a pink pillbox hat."

"Jesus, that's awful." Geoffrey shook his head. "No. Hamlet can be a recovering hippie, but no Jacqueline Kennedy hats."

"If you insist," Darren said, with the intonation of someone making a great concession. He paused a moment before he added, "Of course, Ophelia is a true flower child."

Geoffrey growled at that and raised his fist. "Damn you to hell," he said, his voice full of menace.

Darren backed away until he had enough space to turn and run toward the bus stop, laughing. The ludicrous thrill of having Geoffrey pursuing him for whatever reason had been a staple of his self-denial regimen for years now; he could spend a few breathless moments pretending while they pelted toward their destination. When he reached the bus stop, he paused to catch his breath. "She is," he said, as Geoffrey came up at speed.

"Of course she is." Geoffrey bumped him with his shoulder. "But you're not putting that in the program. What a horrible pun."

"It would add to the scene-setting for the audience."

"Listening to each other groan in horror as they ran across the line? I doubt it."

Darren spread his hands. "Cue sound effects. Scene: the battlements of Elsinore. Enter: Ghost."

"No, no, no." Geoffrey covered his eyes. "No."

"We'll discuss it later," Darren said, folding his arms to wait for the bus.

"No, we won't. You'll assume I've forgotten and put it in at the last moment." Geoffrey shook his head, but it didn't hide his rueful smile. "I haven't forgive you for The Madness of King George -- my mother kept a copy of that program, you know."

Darren raised his eyebrows. "Did she have any idea --" The veiled paeans in the text had been overt enough to make Geoffrey blush, even though he only accused Darren of half of them. The other half had, therefore, been sufficiently veiled.

"None, and I'll never tell her." Geoffrey glanced toward the road. "Ah. Our chariot awaits."

*

"So how did you talk him into it?" Sylvia asked when Darren approached her in the lobby after her voice class.

Darren frowned. She was a mere junior, and could hardly be expected to understand the intricacies of such a production. He made sure that the look he gave her communicated his disdain. "How did I talk whom into what?"

She rolled her eyes. "Geoff, into this role-switching concept." Her smile grew wicked. "Just how many blowjobs do you owe him?"

"Oh, please," which could very well have come out as the suppliant plea it wanted to be, without the practice. "In the first place, we're not fucking," more's the pity, he most certainly didn't say, "and in the second, it was his damned idea."

"Really." Sylvia looked far too pleased at the first revelation to entirely grasp the second.

Darren folded his arms and glared at her over his glasses. "Are you in, or not?"

She checked her watch, then smiled at him. "Tell me about your grand vision for Gertrude."

"Character note one -- she's not fucking Rosencrantz. Or Guildenstern. And shouldn't look as though she wants to. I have other potentials in the wings --" two, total, one of whom would need to be Ophelia, but why make that obvious?

"I'm an actress," Sylvia said, drawing herself up with appropriately queenly hauteur. "I can hide it at least as well as you can."

Darren took out the cast sheet and wrote her name down. "I'm not hiding a damned thing. Did you check with Alex?"

"He's up for Polonius as long as you don't make him shave." Sylvia craned her neck to get a better look at the cast.

"Enter Polonius with something dead on his upper lip." Darren wrote Alex down anyway. "Needs must."

Sylvia tugged the sheet down to get a better look. "Jesus, how'd you convince Eric to work with you again? I thought after the Mamet fiasco --"

Darren licked his lips. "I don't owe Geoffrey any blowjobs," he said, telling his favorite sort of lie. Eric was no more interested in Darren -- nor vice versa -- than he was in nuclear physics.

Sylvia laughed and let the list go. "I don't think even that would convince Eric to manage for you."

"Perhaps it was the fact that otherwise, we'd keep him up until all hours talking about the problems with a play he couldn't fix." Darren shrugged. "Or the knowledge that, come what may, he'll never have to do it for free again."

"Or you're cooking him dinner for the rest of the semester."

"More to the point, I've promised him Geoffrey won't." Darren put the cast list away. "Tuesday, seven-o'clock, chez nous."

"I'll be there." Sylvia kissed him on both cheeks and went off to her class. Her year spent in Italy had thoroughly warped her young mind.

*

"The only reason I went along with your latest ridiculous scheme is because you only need a bare stage, a handful of coins, and two fucking barrels." Eric picked up Darren's sketch for the boat scene and folded it neatly in half, as firm a dismissal as any crumpling or ripping.

"Don't forget the deck chair." Geoffrey pushed his properties list across the table at Eric.

Eric skimmed it, frowning, and looked up at Darren. "Simplicity, Nichols." He waved the paper. "See? There are no foghorns in this production. No cannons."

"You're awfully bound to the text." Darren took his sketch, tucked it in his notebook, and pushed his glasses up his nose. "You didn't argue with Angelique when she wanted Oedipus Rex in Beijing."

"Angelique didn't throw hissy fits over the shade of red for the silk." Eric tipped back in his chair and grabbed a mug off the counter. "And she didn't argue with me about getting someone who actually knew what he was talking about to do the calligraphy on it. None of this 'Oh, Michelangelo Smichelangelo' bullshit you pulled with that ridiculous, pointless, lumpy quasi-David."

"That, and you need the credit as much as we do." Geoffrey got up. "First round?"

Darren put his feet up on the table, ignoring Eric's wince. "The cast will be here in half an hour, and if they see we're drinking, they'll all want one."

"You hope they'll be here then," Eric said darkly. His head was bent over the properties list, his mousy hair falling into his eyes as he read. "But you said you got Jason for your Player."

Geoffrey opened the cabinet that held assorted dry goods and emergency liquor rations. "He'll be perfect."

"He'll be late." Eric underlined an item on the list. "Next time, tell him we're starting at quarter to."

Darren rocked his chair back onto two legs. "If you're making free with the rum, I'll have some."

Geoffrey poured them all enough to dull the pain of waiting for Jason. "It's your rum, in any case."

"True, true." Darren crossed his ankles and took the glass. "When I have a craving for scotch, on the other hand --"

"If we could stick to the damn point --" Eric shoved his hair out of his face. "Jason is going to hold your rehearsals back."

"I won't let him." Geoffrey sipped, winced, and sipped again. "We'll just schedule his scenes with a buffer zone."

"One made of all the time you bastards are going to spend bouncing the same lines off of each other?" Eric took a drink, then another. "Midnight fucking curfew for talking to me about it."

Darren sat on the edge of the table. "That's awfully early."

"If I only had to deal with one role each --" Eric stopped and held his hands up. "No, not even then."

Geoffrey leaned on the counter and sighed in a manner pitched to carry. "You loved us once," he said, his voice ludicrously mournful.

"I respect your artistic vision." Eric toasted him and then Darren with the rum. "I need sleep, though."

Darren clucked his tongue. "In your salad days, you were far more --"

"-- exhausted." Eric leaned back in his chair, swigged rum without regard for its quality, and grinned at them. "You can argue until noon if you want. Just not with me."

"Not even on Fridays?" Geoffrey asked, wistfully.

"Fridays I'm out of here at nine. I promised Trish." Eric spread his hands. "One of us has to get laid every now and then."

Darren raised his glass. "I'll drink to that."

Geoffrey gave him an odd look, but took a drink. "So no late rehearsals on Friday."

"Not never, not no-how -- except the last week before, you know, and obviously she's not going to throw a fit over the actual show." Eric swirled the last of his rum and looked into the glass. "She knows I have obligations, too."

"A fine woman; a fair woman; a sweet woman." Geoffrey drained his glass.

"Asshole," Darren said, grinning at him, and stood. "I'm going to brush my teeth so that none of our beloved groundlings feel the sting of jealousy."

The first knock on the door came just as Darren opened the bathroom door again. "Geoffrey, you'd better clean up," he said, loudly enough to carry to the front porch. "Quickly."

Alex the unfortunately mustached Polonius, Sylvia the importunate Gertrude, and Chris, whose Claudius would be indubitably weak, all came in, giving Darren curious looks. "I thought you said --" Sylvia stage-whispered to him.

He pursed his lips. "Would I lie to you, darling?" In a louder voice, he said, "Let's gather in the living room, children; the chairs will do for now, and the carpeting is very soft on the knees."

Chris looked around at the assorted accumulations of three students' worth of books, papers, and coffee mugs. The couch and chairs in the living room were clean, but it had come at the expense of the coffee table to some extent, and one of the piles there threatened to crash sideways at any moment. "Are we doing a table reading around that table?" he asked, tilting his head sideways to peer at the stack. "More like a leaning tower of Pisa reading."

"If we were in Pisa, perhaps." Darren gestured toward a chair. "It will serve."

"That's leaning a lot more than the tower," Sylvia put in, always glad to have a chance to parade her meager knowledge of foreign climes.

Geoffrey stuck his head in and frowned. "I don't want to start until Jason gets here, at the very least."

"It's going to be a long night," Eric said, and settled himself in his accustomed chair with notebook and script.

The doorbell rang, and Jason came in, oddly early, trailed by Terence -- the only Hamlet Geoffrey had been willing to countenance -- as well as two freshmen. "Rachel, Carl, come in," Geoffrey said expansively. To the rest of the company, he said, "You all know Jason, but this is our Ophelia -- and Alfred."

Anyone with half an eye for such a thing could see that Carl had only taken the role out of hero worship-cum-lust for Geoffrey. Rachel was far more overwhelmed to be walking in with Jason, which was something of a relief. Enough members of the cast chasing after one man, however charming and aloof, tended to make the stage an uncomfortable place.

"Excellent." Darren clapped his hands. "We'll need the chairs from the kitchen, and then we can begin."

"You're doing well," Geoffrey said in an undertone as he lent a hand lugging chairs.

"How so?" Darren asked.

"You haven't mocked any of them yet."

"They haven't said anything yet." Darren set his chair in the living room doorway, picked up his script from its seat, and sat down. "If we're all prepared," he said, ignoring Geoffrey next to him, settling himself.

The cast shuffled and pulled out their scripts from bags, purses, and pockets, but even tiny, enamored Carl had his. Perhaps word had got around regarding Darren's ability to be patient.

Geoffrey cleared his throat, and Sylvia stopped leaning over to say something to Alex. An impressive skill, if one could afford the messy adulation. "The production design is still being designed, but we were thinking --" he raised his eyebrows and glanced at Darren, swiftly shifting the blame, "-- Hamlet is striving to erase his hippie past, encumbered here by his two dear friends -- not the easily-doubled Horatio, of whom the less said the better under the circumstances, but rather Rosencrantz and Guildenstern." He jerked his thumb at Darren.

"You all must know that the main character note these two possess for the audience is that they do not know themselves." Darren cleared his throat. "Let them, then, be of the group that has tuned in, turned on, and dropped out." Sylvia giggled; so did Carl. "Hippies, in the most prosaic vein, Earth Shoes and tie-dye wearing refugees from an era of confusion."

"And in that state of confusion, we begin." Geoffrey took out a coin and balanced it on his thumb, then flipped it and showed Darren the reverse. "For the moment, Darren will be our Rosencrantz, and I'll take on Guildenstern."

Eric sat up somewhat in his chair, and Darren glared at him. As though Guildenstern's flowerier speeches would only be tolerable if Geoffrey attempted them; as though Darren's comedic timing was perfectly suited to Rosencrantz's bumbling, echolalic speech.

"Isn't it going to be a hell of a lot of of work?" Jason asked.

Geoffrey's manic idea seemed, at that point, like the one bright spot in the production -- not that they had started yet, but Darren had certainly been known to make his opinions public before the scripts were handed out. "Not for you," he said, and took the coin from Geoffrey. "Let's begin, shall we?"

*

"It's eleven-thirty," Eric said, as soon as Carl, with one last, pathetic backward glance, had taken Sylvia's hint and left. "Process fast, I need my beauty rest."

"You certainly do." Darren stood and stretched. "Sylvia's going to have a hell of a time with that dumbshow, with all of the oomph she's stuffing down for Gertrude."

"Terence is perfect, though." Geoffrey smiled in reminiscence. "God, if I only had to direct --"

Darren laughed and leaned against the doorway. "As if you'd let anyone else play Hamlet qua Hamlet when you had a chance at it."

"And Jason -- he's got the timing."

"Mostly." Darren wrinkled his nose. "Except when he completely falls down on it."

Geoffrey rolled his eyes. "You're not perfect either, Rosenstern, and you've got a lot more to learn than he does."

Darren straightened up. "Oh, and you think you're flawless? Postulate, Geoffrey, the accent is on the first fucking syllable. Every time."

Eric groaned and got up. "I'm not listening to this for half an hour. You want something, make a note. Night." He pushed the chairs aside and went into the bathroom, banging the door shut.

"I can fucking well pronounce postulate." Geoffrey stood up and rolled his shoulders. "You need to stop mocking my intonation."

"It's what Rosencrantz does."

"No, it's not. He repeats the words -- only good in support, right? -- but he's not just there as a goddamn parrot. He's his own person."

Darren took his glasses off and ran his hand through his hair. "Is he?"

"Yes." Geoffrey opened his script again. "Here, switch with me and I'll show you."

"Oh -- fuck. Do we have to start at the beginning? There's much less of the echoing there."

"Act Two, then. Enter Hamlet --"

Geoffrey wasn't mimicking his diction, but Darren was relatively certain he hadn't been using Geoffrey's precise patterns all the way through. "Like a nightingale at a Roman feast" took on a wholly different character the second time through.

When they paused, Eric said, "You're both completely nuts," but he sounded much less crotchety than he had when he'd announced his desire to sleep immediately, even though it was well past midnight and he'd been standing in the hall for who knew how many pages. "And I am going to bed, really, this time."

"Good night," Darren said quickly, leaving Geoffrey to echo him -- or not quite, as the case might be.

"You see my point, though?" Geoffrey asked when Eric was shut in his room, far from any continuing disturbance.

"Yes." Darren waved his hand impatiently. "I saw your point at the first damned line. I'm not some mewling babe who needs to be hand-fed every fucking cue and patted for saying my three lines with fucking feeling."

Geoffrey laughed, the bastard. "Carl is one of Jason's protégés, not mine. And he's not that bad."

Darren scowled at him. "He's supposed to be an abused child, not a seasoned whore."

"We'll work on the nuances later." Geoffrey shook his head. "I would've thought you'd be more worried about Alex."

"Polonius is supposed to be an idiot; it's typecasting, but it suits him." Darren tossed his script onto the coffee table with a flourish. "And no one needs to babysit him."

There was a long moment wherein neither of them said anything and Darren wondered just what Geoffrey was making of his overtired chatter. "He's just a kid," Geoffrey said pathetically when he spoke again. As if that had ever been the point.

"Don't lead him on." Darren turned and walked toward the bathroom.

"When have I ever led anyone on?" Geoffrey followed him, overtook him, and stood with his hands on his hips, glaring.

Darren sighed. "It's one in the morning and I'd prefer to sleep before dawn. Would the five most fucking egregious instances suffice, or do you need a chronological list?"

"Oh, start with the top five." Geoffrey folded his arms. "I'm sure you're witty enough to be brief."

The top five were nothing he had actually formulated; the top one was clear enough, but expressing it as such could very well ruin an otherwise acceptable production.

Darren scowled back at Geoffrey. "As if you don't know."

He contrived somehow to look innocent of all offense. "I have no idea. Pray, enlighten me."

"Fine." Darren took a deep breath and resorted to a blend of improvisational skills and hazy memories from long, drunken complaint sessions with Roberto, who had graduated the previous spring and whom Darren had never expected to miss so suddenly nor so fiercely. Pulling them together to make a Guildenstern-style series of postulates took several deep breaths. "Number five -- Kirsten. You dated her for two weeks because you wanted her in your fucking Tempest workshop, and then -- bam."

Geoffrey rolled his eyes. "Those two things had nothing to do with each other. She wanted me to watch hockey with her. Hockey."

"Which is why she's only number five. Four -- Terence."

"What?" Geoffrey threw up his hands. "I've never flirted with Terence."

"Define fucking flirting, then, because you keep casting him and inviting him over for long, long chats." Darren brushed his hair out of his eyes, all the more irritated when it wouldn't stay. "And you know he's gay. Everyone fucking knows it."

"I wasn't." Geoffrey yawned. "If this is the way your whole list goes, I'm going to bed."

Darren bit his tongue. "Fine. Do that."

Geoffrey sighed gustily. "No, you've started. Might as well finish it. Get it out of your system."

That would mean lying -- and he was no mean actor, he knew that, but he was better when he had the lines written. "Three -- Sarah."

"I didn't!" Geoffrey threw up his hands. "She followed me around for a year."

"And you didn't tell her to fuck off and die." Darren counted off the points on his fingers. "You asked her to meals. You talked to her directly. You gave her tickets to my goddamn monologues."

"They were good monologues." Geoffrey shrugged. "I thought she'd learn something."

Darren reminded himself sharply that he wasn't going to be bought off. "It didn't make her go away and it didn't make her better."

"All right, all right, all right. I didn't do the right thing -- the asshole right thing -- with Sarah." Geoffrey bowed his head. "Two more to go."

Darren smiled, though Geoffrey couldn't see it. "Two -- Doctor Lafontaine."

"Oh, fuck you." Geoffrey glared at him. "She's my fucking professor."

"Hanging on her every goddamn word. Begging for extra sessions." Darren waved his finger in Geoffrey's face. "You earned your grade, of course, you amazing goddamn actor, but she wanted to give you more than that."

Geoffrey laughed. "You know, for a minute I thought you had an actual point with Sarah and all, but no, you're just fucking nuts. What's your number one, God?"

Darren considered all sorts of useful lies, up to and including Eric, but instead he turned around. "No."

Geoffrey put his hand on Darren's shoulder. "Hey, you're not done yelling at me yet."

Darren pushed him away. "Fuck off, Tennant." He stomped up the stairs loudly enough that Eric came out of his room.

"I was falling asleep," he said reproachfully. His hair was sticking up at madcap angles. He frowned at Darren. "If this is about the play already, I'm moving out."

"Geoffrey is a heartless bastard who ought to have gone into a monastery instead of the theatre," Darren shouted down the stairs.

"Oh, that." Eric yawned. "Amen, and good night." He slammed his door and Darren ducked into his room just as Geoffrey came up the stairs.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Geoffrey asked.

Darren slammed his own door most satisfyingly in Geoffrey's face, and that was the end of all conversation for the night.

*

Geoffrey might be a perfect ass regarding all manner of romantic relationships, but once the cast assembled in an empty classroom and did a more energetic reading, Darren had to admit he had some skill in choosing cast members. Terence's Hamlet had been uncomfortable constrained to the living room; on his feet, he was just the blend of antic and edged that would let the audience know what hell he was going through at every exit.

Jason managed to arrive only ten minutes late, and they backtracked. Darren stopped him after the blood, love, and rhetoric to say, "Lower your voice a bit, darling, they're studying Homer next door and they'll all want to come in here if they hear you. You're worse than Geoffrey."

"Let them come," Jason declaimed, his voice filling the room, but then he desisted and glanced at his script. "Do you want me to do it again?" he asked, in a more acceptable tone of voice.

"Please." Geoffrey cleared his throat, and they began again. His Rosencrantz had been the most incurious possible rendition of lively dialogue all afternoon. Darren's notes for him would be best delivered away from the cast, however, and he fully expected the same sort of treatment of each of his own errors.

Sylvia managed to keep her simper to a royal ghost of a smile as she sailed in on Chris's arm. Chris stumbled over Claudius's lines until Darren glanced at Geoffrey, wondering precisely how many flubs they'd all have to take before they could move on. After the fourth, Darren said, "We'll do this scene tomorrow."

Sylvia clucked her tongue. "Skip ahead, then, I've got mine."

"Do it," Geoffrey said.

Bless her attention-seeking heart, she wasn't lying, and the words, while not quite smooth, were all present and accounted for. It let them carry on, and if Geoffrey called a halt after "Exeunt -- leaving Ros. and Guil.," that was only to be expected. "We'll do that scene on our own," Darren said to the company, covering Geoffrey's scowl.

Terence found his place and his entrance while the rest were flipping forward. "With enough adaptation, you could make it properly a two-man show." He winked at Darren. "Wouldn't that be a sight?"

"That would completely undermine the point of the show." Geoffrey took up a mark that Darren would bet he had chosen at that very instant, and he made a token effort to compose his features from irritation to bemusement. It did not quite succeed, leaving Rosencrantz looking as though Hamlet had spurned his affections every fucking day of their studies together.

Terence went with it, his manic energy carrying them all, even Alex and his obsolete facial hair, until Hamlet and Polonius went off again, leaving Darren to say, "Hmm," as profoundly as he could.

"Enough," Geoffrey snapped.

Darren blinked and checked the script before he realized that wasn't the next line. "All right. Shall we do it again?"

"No, that was good enough." Geoffrey shook his head. "Skip ahead."

It wasn't like him to play hopscotch through the script like this, even so early on, but after Claudius's line fumbles and Jason's attempts to chew scenery they never intended to install, perhaps he was a bit off. "We can't do the dumbshow -- half the players are in with Kovalic till three." Darren raised his eyebrows, then turned back to Terence and gestured to Jason. "Tomorrow, we'll work on the dumbshow and the business around it. Five -- no, call it four-thirty," and if Terence caught the slight inclination of Darren's head, more power to him.

Eric stood and stretched. "Give o'er the play, already?"

"No," Geoffrey said. "We need --"

"-- the time tomorrow." Darren raised his voice. "We'll do this again tomorrow, and a section with the players so that we can start to achieve a unity of gesture. Au revoir, darlings."

"Fucking hell." Geoffrey put his hand on Darren's shoulder. "We need this time," he said sharply, but softly enough that it didn't stop Jason from putting on his hat.

Darren gritted his teeth. "Yes. We do." He caught Eric's eye and gave him a deliberately brittle smile.

Geoffrey shook his head. "I can argue with you later."

"No, you can't." Darren put on his most reasonable smile and watched Geoffrey's shoulders tense. "Because, you see, I'm having dinner with Sylvia."

"What for?" Geoffrey frowned.

"Because she damned well asked me to, it's your night to cook, and I'm not in the mood for half-limp, half-crunchy pasta again." Darren frowned right back at him. "So if you want to talk, if you want to run lines, I'm yours until six, and then I'm out of here."

Geoffrey ran his hand through his hair. "We'll never get anything done at this rate."

Eric cleared his throat. "Where did you want to start?"

Darren sighed. "We left so much of it out that we might as well begin at the beginning."

"Just go home," Geoffrey said, waving his hand at Eric, then looking up with an apologetic glance. "We can make notes, after all."

"If you're sure." Eric closed his script. "Don't start rehearsing the part where they have a brawl without a spotter, though."

"They don't --" Geoffrey caught himself far too late, and his laughter was weak. "We won't."

Eric put his coat on. "You put a brawl into Twelfth Night."

"A scuffle," Geoffrey objected. "And only once. And he started it."

"You fucked the smoke effect completely." Eric shrugged. "But there's no smoke in this one."

"None," Geoffrey said, though the concept was appealing to Darren the more they discussed it.

"And no flashbombs," Eric said, raising his eyes at Darren.

Darren sighed. "If you insist, though it would be a hell of a thing for Jason's entrance."

Eric closed his eyes briefly as if the suggestion pained him. Geoffrey said, "I'll see you for dinner, at least?"

"With bells on," Eric said, nodded to them both, and left.

"Exeunt -- leaving Rosencrantz and Guildenstern," Darren said into the silence after the door shut. "And what crawled up your ass and died, precisely?"

"I don't want to argue with you," Geoffrey lied blithely, throwing himself into a chair.

Darren sat down near enough that they wouldn't need to raise their voices, but far enough for all sorts of propriety. "The door's right there, Geoffrey."

"I don't want to argue with you in front of the cast unless it's actually important." Geoffrey let his head fall back and stared at the ceiling. Darren stared at his neck until he caught himself doing it.

"You're acting like I strangled your puppy. I could have sworn all I did today was extravagantly praise your hand-picked Hamlet -- who's going to outshine at least one of us whenever he has a chance -- and try to stop Jason from delivering the Player as an outright parody of your mannerisms." Darren crossed his legs. "Some people are never happy."

Geoffrey sighed and looked at him again. "You weren't done telling me off last night."

Darren took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt. "Let's not try to finish every argument we begin; we have a play to put on."

"You don't usually get that angry." Geoffrey leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. "Finish the argument so we can move on."

"I get that angry with you every fucking day." Darren crossed the room and swept his coat onto his shoulders.

Geoffrey buried his face in his hands. "Oh, the hell you do." He tugged his tangled curls, making them even more bouffant than they ought to be. "If we're working together, work with me. Get it out of your system."

Darren grabbed his mittens and his hat. He had no intention of listening to Geoffrey laugh at him in a place where the class on the other side of the wall would have to hear it too. "I thought you wanted to rehearse. If you don't, I have better things to do." Reading another book on Godot would potentially be productive, and by some lights it counted as better. Better than watching Geoffrey lose his patience over his own infernal patience, at any rate.

"I do. I just --" Geoffrey stood up. "It's not over."

"Of course it's not. No one's dead yet." Darren left, tugging his hat down over his ears so that he could reasonably claim not to have heard Geoffrey reply.

*

"It's going to be a great production," Sylvia said. Jeanine and Miranda looked envious. "The timing -- god, everything."

Darren picked at his lasagna. He didn't mind praise -- no one sane did -- but he'd done nothing to earn it from Sylvia, and Geoffrey hadn't either. The timing was practically nonexistent as of yet.

"We're only putting on two nights of the Sartre," Jeanine said. "And it's probably going to be one more than anybody wants to see, with Laurie directing."

"She could be worse," Miranda said, lifting her water glass for emphasis. "She was, when we did that scene from Pygmalion in trousers, god, remember, Syl?"

Sylvia winced and stabbed the remnants of her salad. "I can't believe she talked anyone into that."

"Accents straight out of Mary fucking Poppins," Miranda said, and they laughed.

"I should be going," Darren said, picking up his plate to hide the fact that he'd eaten half of what Sylvia had served him. "Rehearsal, you know."

Miranda's eyes widened. "You weren't kidding?" she said to Sylvia.

Darren scraped his plate into the garbage somewhat more loudly than necessary, trying not to hear Sylvia's "I told you they never really stop."

"It must be a lot of fun, though," Jeanine said. "Isn't it?" she asked, apparently addressing Darren.

"Isn't which?" He set his utensils in the sink.

She smiled, an unblemished sophomoric hope in her eyes. "Well, you live with Geoffrey, right? And you're going to rehearse at eight, when Syl said you just were right before dinner, too, and you're working on the play all the time. You must really love it."

Darren smiled back at her for her benefit and to spare Sylvia's reputation with her housemates. "Generally speaking, yes," he said, and nodded to them. "Thank you for dinner."

Sylvia got up. "I wish you didn't have to go so soon," she said. "I'll walk you to the door."

"Thank you." Darren answered Miranda and Jeanine's waves with one of his own and followed her to the hall closet. "Don't start believing your own press quite yet."

"What?" she said, handing him his scarf. "It's going to be amazing. God, the energy -- and it wasn't even the whole cast."

Darren tied it on firmly. "You didn't see us make idiots of ourselves with that godforsaken Noël Coward atrocity."

Sylvia frowned. "When was that?"

"Before your time." Darren put on his hat. "But it made me humble."

She laughed and kissed his cheeks. "Nothing could."

Darren shook his head. "It made me believe in my own fallibility, if only for a brief, humiliated flash."

"Like Pygmalion, then." Sylvia unlocked the door. "But that was years ago."

"It wasn't a lightning strike," Darren said, and went out into a rising wind, holding his hat onto his head.

*

"Here," Geoffrey said, while Darren stuffed his cold toes into his ratty, once-blue slippers. He handed Darren a steaming mug of cocoa.

Spiked cocoa, it turned out. "Comfort food already?"

Geoffrey sat at the kitchen table and pulled out the chair next to him. "We have an argument to finish and I trust you not to throw hot liquids."

"I'm not arguing with you," Darren said, cupping the cocoa between his hands and ignoring the chair. "I'm not angry."

"Third time's the charm." Geoffrey sipped from the mug on the table. "But it can wait until you're thawed, anyway. How was dinner?"

"I have no idea." Darren sat down, staring at the bubbles on the top of his cocoa. The heat made his glasses fog up, and he set them on the table. "Sylvia's roommates are infants."

"Dull, then?"

Darren drank again, more deeply. "She's teaching them to hero worship you." Or us, he didn't say; that prospect was far more frightening.

Geoffrey groaned in a manner that he couldn't possibly have meant to be erotic on any level whatsoever. "Sometimes I look forward to graduation."

"Do you?" Darren forbore from pointing out that he had cocoa foam on his upper lip. "It's going to be a while before anybody else is so impressed by the sheer mention of my name, at least."

"Oh, shut up." Geoffrey licked his lips. "You're going to be fucking famous, don't start."

Darren shook his head and drank his cocoa. "We'll see."

Geoffrey sighed. "I don't have the energy to give you an ego massage and argue with you and get any rehearsing done at all."

"As if it matters." Darren shrugged and leaned back in his chair, setting his empty, cooling mug on the table. "I don't need empty compliments -- I got enough of those from Sylvia."

"I had as lief be wooed of a snail," Geoffrey said, making it a question.

"That's the whole argument I'm not having with you, isn't it," Darren said, warmed enough by hot chocolate and what must have been a double portion of bourbon that he didn't mind bringing it up again.

"Is it?"

"You and romance," Darren said, shrugging. "And the things you use it for."

"Right." Geoffrey leaned forward and nodded. "You were counting down my top five terrible errors of judgment, and you were right about Sarah. But you skipped my number one fuckup, which isn't like you."

Darren sighed. "We all have our moments of weakness." He stood up. "Are you done with your cocoa?"

"Look at you, acting responsible for once." Geoffrey handed him the empty mugs and Darren half-filled them with water before he turned toward the hallway.

"I need to collect myself before we rehearse," he said, in his best stage tones.

"No, you idiot." Geoffrey stood and followed him out of the kitchen. "You need to talk to me, or I'll hold you down and make you."

Darren laughed, meaning to do it once and bitterly, but the bourbon got the better of him, and once he began, he only stopped himself by saying, "Geoffrey, Geoffrey, Geoffrey. Don't make threats you won't follow through on."

Geoffrey frowned at him, then sighed, shaking his head as though he beheld Hamlet's final bloodbath, all fatal flaws come home to roost. "I never flirted with you. I mean, I never meant to."

"Go fuck yourself," Darren said, all the relaxation gone as if it had never been.

"No, I mean it." Geoffrey spread his hands. "Whatever you thought was flirting, that wasn't what I had in mind."

Darren closed his eyes. "The argument that the author is dead only applies to creative works."

Geoffrey put his hands on Darren's shoulders, the warm weight enough to make for a torturously pleasant memory under any other circumstance. "I'm not half as subtle as you give me credit for. If I'd been flirting with you, it would have been more like this."

He was acting. Every part of the light, feathery kiss on Darren's cheek was complete and utter bullshit.

None of that stopped Darren from flushing. He could feel the heat in his cheeks, and, damn him, in his groin. "Get out of my fucking way," Darren said, his voice as menacing as he could make it. "And don't ever do that again."

Geoffrey said, "I really wasn't flirting with you before," he said, his voice as light as if Darren wasn't beet fucking red and miserable.

"I don't care." Darren shrugged, though he was so tense it was an effort. Geoffrey's hands on his shoulders just made it worse. "I don't care what you do or who you flirt with, or even what you do with your ridiculous effort at murdering Stoppard."

"You are so full of shit." Geoffrey kissed him and Darren pulled away, his hands clenched into fists.

"Stop being a fucking idiot." Darren kept his voice down with all of the self-consciousness Geoffrey had apparently lost. "I've taken enough of your shit today without having to put up with this. Another couple of rehearsals like the one we stopped partway through and we'll lose the cast's trust."

"I'm not being half as much of an idiot as you are." Geoffrey grinned at him -- god, his unfair fucking smile. "But if you really would prefer thinking I'm leading you on to actually doing something, all right."

Darren shoved his hands in his pockets. He knew perfectly well that it would be ridiculous to try to throw a punch, but it was increasingly tempting. "Newsflash, Geoffrey -- you're straight. And I'm not your fucking girlfriend."

He was still smiling, damn him, and when he laughed, it went on too long. "As if I'd tell you about everyone I ever kissed. You're the center of the department rumor mill."

"Roberto was," Darren said, startled into defensiveness. "I never -- oh, you bastard." He narrowed his eyes at Geoffrey, not that it helped; he knew how Geoffrey laughing at him looked all too well. "Don't you dare tell me you fucked Terence."

Geoffrey waved his hand. "I've been a model of heterosexuality since freshman year, and the only one who knows is more discreet than you'll ever be." He sighed -- another put-on. "Clearly you haven't been watching me that well if you didn't know that."

"Then why tell me this now? Self-destructive impulses?"

"I'd never date you," Geoffrey said as if it were so simple as that, as if he didn't expect the rejection to sting. "In the first place, I'd rather keep these things quiet --"

"Closeted," Darren said, making the word a goad.

Geoffrey nodded. "For now, at least. And you can't keep anything quiet. In the second place, you're an asshole."

"So are you." Darren stuffed his hands back into his pockets. "I already knew you weren't going to date me; that was the whole point of the numbered list."

Geoffrey held up his hand. "You're missing my point."

Being told to be quiet was too frustrating for silence. "Which is what?"

"All this tension," Geoffrey said, sounding tired. He put his hand on Darren's shoulder again. "All this stress -- God, you need to get laid."

There was no way in the world that Geoffrey meant what he was implying. "You don't mean -- with you."

"You're such an idiot." Geoffrey kissed him again.

It went better this time, as Darren was expecting it enough to kiss him back instead of wanting to kill him for it. The taste of alcohol and hot chocolate in his mouth was nearly as incredible as the kiss itself. "Is that your idea of foreplay?"

Geoffrey laughed. "Not out here, no." He smiled the smile of a man with a truly wonderful and terrible idea. "Your room or mine?"

The best possible answer would be another hearty, "Fuck off," but Geoffrey in a generous mood was nothing to be sneered at -- excessively. "Mine shares a wall with Eric's bedroom." Darren cleared his throat, still waiting for Geoffrey to break this new character and tell him what a fool he'd been for believing in it for a moment. "I suppose your desire for secrecy extends to him as well?"

"If we can manage it." Geoffrey kissed him again; it grew more impossible each time, like flipping a coin and having it land heads-up over and over.

"All right," Darren said, peripherally aware that he would consent to practically anything for the chance of another successful kiss. Anything to keep time out of joint.

Following Geoffrey to his bedroom without tripping too obviously over his own feet was a simple enough task. The stairs were a minor challenge, made more dire when Geoffrey stopped halfway up and kissed him again.

Darren shut the door and leaned on it to make sure it latched properly. "You are the most aggravating tease I have ever known," he said, keeping his voice low.

In the light filtering in from outside, Geoffrey's eyes looked ridiculously wide and innocent. "I'm not a tease." He kissed Darren again and cupped him through his pants.

"Jesus." Darren tangled his fingers in Geoffrey's hair -- one of those fantasies that he had long consigned to the trashheap of bathetic ideas. "Your door's not thick enough for this."

"Try something new with the role." Geoffrey sucked on his lower lip until Darren shuddered. "Shut up."

It seemed impolitic to tell him to fuck off while he was opening Darren's pants, however tempting it might be. Instead, Darren pulled him down for another lingering kiss and finally got a good, firm handful of Geoffrey's ass, which felt precisely as he'd thought it would on first glance, o those many years ago. He whispered back, "Only if you do."

Geoffrey laughed and nibbled his ear, then knelt, providing evidence for the existence of a beneficent deity. "Watch me," he said, as if Darren could possibly do anything else.

"Playing against type?" Darren's fingers brushed Geoffrey's on his hip as they shoved his pants down around his knees. "How brave --"

"I have resources." Geoffrey licked him -- slowly, unfairly.

Darren found himself transfixed -- not for the first time -- by Geoffrey's clever, ridiculous mouth. He had a sinking feeling that it was only going to be worse after this, that every damn time he looked at Geoffrey mid-direction, mid-scene, he'd think of Geoffrey's mouth wet and open, touching his cock just enough to make his hips jerk. "Fuck, I need --" Darren covered his mouth with one hand "-- better lighting design in here."

"God," Geoffrey pulled off and laughed. "You're never happy out of the spotlight."

As if Darren were the only one. "It's too dark in here." Darren said, fighting the urge to grab him by the hair or beg.

"Not for night." Geoffrey licked his own palm, a showy bit of business wasted without the lights and a merciful relief when he wrapped it around Darren's cock.

Darren groaned and choked the sound back until it nearly became a whimper. "No, you bastard, not for night -- "

He could hear Geoffrey's smile as much as he could see it in the shadows, smug as hell. "Dark for day."

"I hate you." Darren leaned back against the door and closed his eyes, which saved him from watching Geoffrey smirk, but also meant he missed the moment when he started again. "All right," he said, to stop himself from gasping. "Fine. Yes. It's dark for fucking day."

Geoffrey gave him a gratifying little squeeze that made his eyes cross and did something with his tongue that was more diabolical than Darren had expected of him. Darren bit the knuckle of his thumb hard and struggled between giving in to the process as quietly as possible and maintaining some vague grasp at dignity.

"You weren't -- ah -- planning on doing many rehearsals like this." Darren's voice cracked, even in a hoarse whisper. "The timing is -- I -- fuck --"

The wet sound Geoffrey made letting him go was louder than his words. "It would take entirely too long."

Darren said, "Oh, don't fucking stop," and covered his mouth entirely too late to keep himself from sounding ridiculously needy.

"Unless we're off course," Geoffrey prompted him.

It was a cue -- something -- and Darren barely had the breath to echo him, a Rosencrantz more lost than ever, with "Off course," in a voice he hardly recognized as his own.

Whatever it was Geoffrey wanted in that line, he apparently got it -- not that Darren had any faith in his ability to deliver it in the same way without Geoffrey's hands on his hip and his cock, jerking him off and pulling him in.

The image of trying threw his last shred of self-control into the wind. "Fuck, I can't --"

Geoffrey stood up again, the fucking closet case, and kissed Darren, working him with his slick hand. "You'll get the lines eventually," he said, and Darren pulled his hair ruthlessly to kiss him, to stop him from laughing as Darren came in his hand, shaking and biting his lip.

"You fucking bastard," Darren said, and kissed him again when he had the breath.

"And you wonder why I never flirted with you." Geoffrey leaned against him, rubbing his erection against Darren's hip. "How sharper than a serpent's tooth --"

Darren snorted and pushed him toward the bed. "Take your pants off already."

Geoffrey grabbed an extravagant number of tissues from the nightstand and wiped his hand. "Losing your place in the text, calling me names -- you're falling apart, Nichols."

"You said it yourself: this isn't a fucking romance." Darren kissed him again, fumbling with the button on his pants. "One-night stands aren't supposed to run smooth."

"Is that what this is?" Geoffrey lifted his hips with a grace that might have made Darren's mouth go dry under less inviting conditions and shimmied out of his foolishly tight trousers.

Halfway to deshabille was enough to arrest thought. "I, ah, well." Darren cleared his throat in an effort not to bury his face in Geoffrey's lap immediately. He compensated by letting himself stroke Geoffrey's cock. "We'll see."

"I know I'm out of practice, but was it that bad?" Geoffrey pushed into his hand with a shuddering breath.

"A workmanlike -- no, I can't." Darren kissed his swollen lips again, savoring the moment. "You blew my fucking mind, all right?"

"You're still talking." Geoffrey patted his cheek.

"I recover quickly." Darren shook his head. "Move over, I don't want to end up on the floor."

Geoffrey shifted enough to make room, sort of, and Darren quietly cursed the concept of furnished apartments and the inventor of the twin bed. "How conservative of you."

"Oh, fuck off," Darren said, and took the head of Geoffrey's cock into his mouth, living well being the best revenge. The opportunity to make Geoffrey moan and clutch at his ears might not qualify as everyone's definition of living well, but it fit squarely within Darren's.

Geoffrey sighed and spread his legs as much as the bed would take. "Consistency is all I seek."

Stopping in order to tell him to shut up would be entirely counterproductive, so Darren stroked him instead, teasing until he shivered.

"Don't be an asshole -- if you can help it." Geoffrey's voice, half gone with lust and strangled the rest of the way with repression, had an urgent quality that would never play for a wider audience.

Which probably meant "Don't be as much of a cocktease as I've been," but Darren had no sympathy for him. He slowed down considerably and settled in to enjoy a more leisurely pace; it required more delicacy than a headlong rush. The blend of the particular -- Geoffrey's shuddering laugh, hoarse with hormones, the faint coniferous smell of his clothing, as if he'd been sleeping out of doors -- blended with the basic components of the act. He might be fucking brilliant, but his cock jerked just like anyone else's when he was breathless-close to coming, and the weight of his hand on Darren's hair, not pushing, not pulling, but there, was comforting in its way. He couldn't be perfect all the fucking time.

"God," he said, and for that, Darren gave him another quick swirl of tongue. Even genius assholes lost their lines sometimes, and it would do Geoffrey some good to remember it.

"I -- Jesus, stop." Geoffrey pulled his hair at that, no finesse, no civility, and Darren sat up.

Geoffrey caught his wrist to keep his hand moving. "Don't, just --" He grabbed a pillow, setting himself up for a thousand terrible jokes, and moaned into it as he came all over their hands.

"It's not going to be a one-night stand." Darren set the box of of tissues next to him in easy reach.

"No?" Geoffrey still had his face under the pillow.

Darren wiped his hand and patted Geoffrey's knee. "Not if you're going to hide from me like that."

Geoffrey threw the pillow at him. "I wasn't hiding."

"Weren't you?" Darren set it aside and offered him the tissues.

"No." He took them and brushed at himself, wrinkling his nose, then sat up. "Just keeping quiet."

Darren stood up and refastened his pants. "We can work around Eric's schedule." He frowned at the nightstand. "Hell, I have it somewhere, with everyone else's, for the rehearsals."

Geoffrey tossed a clot of tissues at the trash and got up. "Speaking of which, we should do some."

"Where's your script?"

"In the kitchen." Geoffrey put his pants back on and grimaced. "Meet you in the living room in five minutes? I need to brush my teeth."

"One could make a valid textual argument that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are fucking like weasels."

Geoffrey rolled his eyes. "You left your glasses on the table." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Which scene were we working on?"

Darren frowned at the non sequitur before it made sense. "Ah. Questions."

"Statement." Geoffrey grinned at him and left.

*

"We said we were making room in the schedule for him." Geoffrey tossed Darren a script. "Take Guildenstern, after Hamlet's interrogation."

Darren glared at the clock in lieu of glaring at Jason, who hadn't made it to their reserved rehearsal space. "We have three weeks left, and Terence is never this late."

Geoffrey opened his own script and held it negligently in his hand, keeping the place with his thumb. "So we don't have time to waste on tantrums and make-up sex."

"It was good make-up sex, though."

"Yes, it was, but that's not your line right now." Geoffrey gestured for Darren to begin.

When they reached, "'When is he going to start delving,' I asked myself?" the door burst open and Terence came in with a copy of the Toronto Star and bright red cheeks.

"Did you hear?" he asked, thrusting it at Darren.

"BATHHOUSE FREEDOM PROTESTS" was splashed across the front page, along with a picture of angry men carrying signs. "No. What?" Darren took the paper and scanned the article.

Geoffrey read over his shoulder and cleared his throat when he reached the bottom of the column. "That'll put a spoke in their wheel."

"Isn't it wild?" Terence asked, grinning with a manic sort of camaraderie at Darren. "It makes me want to kiss everyone I know who wouldn't mind."

"Perhaps you should wait to find out what happens to the men who were arrested." Geoffrey shook his head. "Or perhaps we should rehearse."

Terence frowned at him. "No, don't you see, that's just it. If everyone hides and waits for the government to say it's all right, the government never will. All they'll see are those poor guys who got taken in for having sex. We have to let them know that it's not all right."

Darren cleared his throat. "You're right," he said, and Terence gave him a fierce, grateful smile. "But we do have a show to do, so perhaps the rioting will have to wait a bit."

"You could keep going with the direction you've been taking lately." Terence took his hat off. "Emphasize Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's love for each other, and we can make the production a protest, too."

Geoffrey went glassy-eyed for few moments. "We could, at that," he admitted. "Though where exactly that leaves, oh, Alfred --"

"Just where he is." Darren shrugged. "The catalyst, in some ways, for the more disturbing aspects of sexuality to come to the forefront, rather than the simplest of forms: two lost people who cling together against the world."

"You should add in a kiss." Terence tossed the newspaper onto a chair and began hunting through his script.

"That might be overdoing it," Geoffrey objected.

"As a protest," Terence said, and stabbed his finger at a page, offering the script to Geoffrey. "Unless you wanted to take the stage direction 'down his throat' literally."

"No," Darren said, before Geoffrey had stopped spluttering. "Yes, the kiss -- possibly two, there are multiple places one could go with that -- but we're not doing the Rosencrantz Horror Picture Show."

"But you'll do it?" Terence's bright-eyed enthusiasm reminded Darren entirely too much of Geoffrey, who was frowning.

Darren promised, "We'll discuss it," before Geoffrey could put his foot down.

"Great." Terence squeezed Darren's shoulder, and then -- in one of those lovely moments that was an awful idea, even as it happened -- kissed him firmly on the mouth.

Geoffrey cleared his throat as Darren put his hand on Terence's shoulder to push him away. "I don't see any support in the text for that, though."

Terence laughed and winked at Darren, who couldn't decide whether to yell at him or simply go with the spirit of liberation. "Sorry," he said insincerely. "Where should we start, and who's who?"

Darren took a small step away from him for the sake of personal space and glanced at the clock again. "We were waiting for Jason, but it seems like a waste. At your entrance, and I'll take Guildenstern."

"Without kissing, this time," Geoffrey said, and they began.

*

Eric banged on Geoffrey's door. "Take it downstairs."

Darren, who had been one conspiracy of cartographers away from throwing his script on the floor and kissing Geoffrey senseless, opened the door, trusting Eric to attribute his flushed cheeks to the argument about directionlessness and letters which had apparently woken him up. "He started it."

"I spent two hours looking for the right equipment to stage your fucking barrels, Nichols." Eric glared at him. "Trish was waiting for me for the second hour, and it's past midnight, and I don't want to hear one more fucking word from you idiots until I've had my coffee tomorrow morning -- no, this goddamn morning. So keep it down."

"We'll try," Darren said.

"Good. We have another week for you to worry in before we open." Eric stomped back to his bedroom.

"Living room?" Geoffrey asked.

"Kitchen. I need tea if I'm going to keep arguing with you."

With the kettle pinging its way toward boiling and the light over the table lit, the kitchen had a thoroughly different tone from Geoffrey's bedroom. "And another thing," Darren said, once Geoffrey sat down. "Terence's protest. We should play that up more."

"God." Geoffrey put his face in his hands. "That's -- do you really want to be remembered for the queer Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?"

"The way you're playing either of them, right now, the kiss comes out of nowhere." Darren opened the cupboard door as quietly as it would go. "Do you want tea?"

"Sure, thanks." Geoffrey scrubbed his face with his hands and sighed. "We can either do this protest or keep fucking."

Darren came within two grabs of dropping a mug. "What do those things have to do with each other?"

Geoffrey shook his head. "I can see Terence's point about the protest -- timely, making the universal particular, all those good things -- but we're not freshmen anymore, and if we're doing that on stage, everyone's going to wonder if we're doing it offstage."

The kettle began to boil before Darren had a coherent response to this. He turned it off and poured the water into both mugs with more care than he normally took, then set them on the table just as cautiously. "I don't see why that's a problem. We're not out -- you're not, at least, and it's not like we've been doing things any differently than we otherwise would."

"Apart from the sex, and yes, we really are." Geoffrey leaned back in his chair and found the sugar bowl on the overcrowded counter.

"How?" Darren glared at him. "We talk all night, we live together, we eat together, we argue constantly and in public. Just how is that different from last semester?"

"It's all in the --" Geoffrey waved a hand. "The subtext. The business. Eric knows."

"He lives here and he's not deaf, dumb, or blind." Darren rolled his eyes. "If you hadn't bit me that time --"

"No, he asked me. He wasn't sure, he just -- figured it out." Geoffrey spread his hands. "And if he can, other people can, and I don't want that. Not now, not when there might be people who matter, people who care coming to this show."

"You homophobic bastard." Darren folded his arms, trying to believe that the sinking sensation in his stomach had nothing to do with anything but the lateness of the hour. "Why don't you just say 'Let's just be friends' and get it over with? That would be easier than this."

"We're never going to be just friends." Geoffrey added a disgusting amount of sugar to his tea. "Especially not while we're in the middle of this play."

Darren took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, reminding himself that he wasn't going to even begin to cry. Not in front of fucking Geoffrey. "'Let's just be co-directors and put on a play together and live together' doesn't scan as well, you're right."

Geoffrey sipped his tea. "That was what I figured."

"Actually making a statement out of your real life would be far too difficult." Darren took a deep breath and stood up. "Good night, then."

"What about the letter?" Geoffrey asked, pushing his chair back.

"Do whatever you fucking want with the letter." Darren went upstairs, resisting the urge to do it loudly by reminding himself that Eric would take one look at him in this mood, conclude they'd broken up, and possibly feel forced to say something about it, which would make everything that much worse.

*

"I think we can say we made some headway." Geoffrey grinned at the curtain as it closed on opening night.

Darren glanced at the court, who were all slapping each other on the back. "You think so?"

Geoffrey patted him gratefully on the shoulder, keeping his distance up to some odd point that only made sense in the abstraction of his mind. "I think we can say that."

Terence hugged Geoffrey a moment later, grinning wildly. "That was wonderful!"

Darren cleared his throat. "I think we can say he made us look ridiculous," he offered, more diffidently than he had earlier in the evening. Rosencrantz was frustrated, certainly, but he was a naïf who was disallowed context for Hamlet's actions. Darren was far more specifically irritated, and much more constrained to hide it for the good of the production.

Geoffrey thumped Terence on the back. "Do that again tomorrow," he said, in a voice better suited for St. Crispin's Day than Guildenstern, "and it will be more of a wonder yet."

"I will if you will." Terence gave him a fierce smile and turned to Darren. "God, that just flowed so well."

Darren held up his hands, avoiding a hug or, worse, another misplaced kiss. "Take your costume off before you leave, and we'll be off to the bar in fifteen minutes."

"If not sooner." Geoffrey glanced toward the edge of the stage. "But we should check with Eric first."

"Of course. See you later!" Terence waved and turned to Jason to share his exuberance.

*

"Where the fuck is Terence?" Darren demanded of Geoffrey. "He was here half an hour before the call for the fucking dress, and an hour before for the fucking opening, and he's your goddamn Hamlet." He'd put on damned good shows after the dress, everything falling into place, and they'd all been looking forward to a full house on Friday. What kind of an actor disappeared in the middle of a successful run?

Geoffrey, his face paler than usual under his stage makeup, said, "His roommate said he hasn't been home all day, and he gave me the number for his family, and they have no idea."

"Jesus fucking Christ." Darren threw up his hands. "You cast the bastard. If he's not in hospital, I'm going to put him there myself."

"Did you talk to Scott?"

"No, Dave. He's terrified, but he's in the costume, studying as fast as he can." Darren tugged at his shirt with both hands rather than disarrange his makeup.

Geoffrey stared at him. "Dave who?"

"Constantine, he was in your fucking Othello, you ought to remember --"

"He hasn't been to a single rehearsal!" Geoffrey closed his eyes. "Why didn't you get Scott? He knows all the blocking inside-out."

"We can have a disoriented Hamlet or a miserable dumbshow. With this play, the audience knows all of Hamlet's lines as well as Dave will, but if we lose the framing device, we're all completely fucked." Darren shrugged.

Geoffrey folded his hands in front of his face as though he was praying. "And you didn't ask me about this."

"You were on the telephone. There wasn't fucking time. Dave will be fine -- Jesus, Geoffrey, trust me." Darren grabbed him by the shoulders and said into his ear, "Just how much of the protest do we have to cut for you to fuck me tonight?"

"No, no, no." Geoffrey pushed him away. "Just -- go talk him through the blocking again. And don't start drinking, we can't afford the lag time."

Darren flipped him off and strode off to the alcove where Dave was muttering over his script. The suit fit him even more poorly than it had fit Terence. "You look the part," he said.

Dave smiled weakly and nodded. "Talk me through my entrances again. I've got the lines."

Alex, his mustache spruced up for the occasion, came barreling down the hall. "Why aren't you Scott?" he demanded of Dave.

Darren glowered at Alex with all of the commanding presence he could bring to bear on the situation. "The dumbshow is more important than Hamlet, and we'd never teach anyone the dumbshow in time. You go through his blocking with him, and just fucking pray Terence shows up."

"Right, right. Did you tell Sylvia and Chris?"

"That's what I'm going to do next," Darren said, and went to look for them.

*

The phone rang at nine-twenty-three the next morning. Eric, who had had two hours' less hard drinking the night before, won the dash to the phone. Darren stumbled down the stairs behind him. "Hello?" Eric said.

"Is it him?" Geoffrey called from halfway up the stairs. He stopped in the kitchen doorway next to Darren wearing -- or attempting to wear -- a black shirt that didn't fit his shoulders.

"Oh, shit," Darren said, and looked down at the shirt he'd grabbed. It had seemed a bit large, but in the rush and the hangover he hadn't much noticed.

"Yeah, they're awake," Eric said, and nodded at Geoffrey.

"Is he dying?" Darren asked.

Eric shook his head. "Which of them do you want to talk to first?"

Darren scowled and put out his hand for the phone. "Is his mother dying?"

Eric handed it to Geoffrey over Darren's head and fury. "Terence?" Geoffrey asked. "-- Yes. And you are --" he closed his eyes and put his hand to the bridge of his nose. "You couldn't have -- ah." He put his hand over the receiver. "He got stranded in Toronto. After a protest."

"Would he prefer to be shot, poisoned, or fucking stabbed in the back?" Darren made a grab for the receiver.

Geoffrey held him at arm's length. "No, he's just upset."

"I'm fucking furious," Darren shouted.

"Well, yes, so am I," Geoffrey said, dodging another attempt to grab the phone. "Will you be there tonight? -- You're sure -- and Sunday?"

Darren laughed incredulously. "Who wants him there?"

"Yes, of course. We need you. But we need you committed. Do I have your word?" Geoffrey held up his hand. "Good. We'll need to see you half an hour before the rest of the cast."

"So we can figure out where to hide the fucking body, maybe." Darren shook his head, winced at the headache that threatened to blind him, and leaned against the wall to wait.

"All right," Geoffrey said. "I'm glad to hear you're all right," he added, over Darren's shout of "That makes one of us." He said, "See you later," and hung up.

Darren grabbed for the phone, but Eric was in his way. "Yelling at him won't fix anything. Go get dressed and I'll make coffee."

"He deserves far more than that." Darren scowled at him.

Eric shook his head. "The kid fucked up. You've done it, we've all done it. The world didn't end and the show went on."

"Poorly." Darren let out his breath in a sigh. "Fine. I'll get dressed, and we'll all have a discussion. Over coffee."

"Good plan," Geoffrey said, and followed him upstairs. He came into Darren's room right behind him. "Ah, I'd like that shirt back."

Darren raised his eyebrows. "I think it looks better on me." He did a demonstrative turn though it made his head pound.

"This doesn't fit me at all." Geoffrey took off the one he was attempting to wear and held it out, bare-chested and as utterly unfairly mouthwatering as ever.

"It looked good on you, actually." Darren looked at the floor and searched for some form of composure. "Are we still 'just friends,' then?"

"Saturday night." Geoffrey tossed the shirt onto his bed. "Who knows who'll be in the audience?"

Darren nodded slowly. "I won't kill Terence." He smiled bitterly. "At least he's brave enough to stand up for himself."

"The kisses can stay in," Geoffrey said. "They make the play more than it would be otherwise -- he was, you were both right about that."

Darren took off Geoffrey's shirt and handed it to him, looking at the wall the entire time so as not to yell. "You'd better get dressed."

Geoffrey took it. "See you downstairs."

*

"We missed you last night," Darren said, ignoring Geoffrey's presence and focusing on Terence.

"I was supposed to be back in time." Terence sighed. "I'm really, really sorry. But you said I could go on." He smiled at Geoffrey in a way meant to be winning.

Geoffrey spread his hands. "We have proof -- we can't do this without you."

Darren snorted. "Or we couldn't last night, that's for sure." After six glasses of water and several aspirin, his headache had died back to a dull roar, but his temper hadn't improved. "You'll need to apologize to everyone."

"Of course." Terence nodded, but that kind of smile wasn't getting him anywhere with Darren, possibly ever.

It was the sort of smile that had cast a romantic pall over the entire production, rife with more emotion than the damned play was meant to bear, and pinned up by two kisses which would be incredibly uncomfortable to perform. Had Terence somehow talked them into a nude scene, things would have been easier, barring the hickey on Darren's shoulder and, if he hadn't been imagining things, the bruise high on Geoffrey's hip that looked entirely too much like a bitemark.

"There were several directors you'd have heard of here when you weren't," Geoffrey said.

"Oh, god." Terence closed his eyes. "I'm sorry."

Darren cleared his throat. "Several of them spoke to me about better ways to prepare understudies." Two, and one only in the phrase, "It's rough when someone jumps ship," but by then Darren had been drunk enough that it looked like there were two people saying it.

"I know, I know." Terence put his head in his hands. "I ruined your careers forever and you'll never forgive me."

"Two more shows." Darren stood up. "Your last chance to make good -- and, not coincidentally, ours. Let's do this."

Terence took a deep breath and got up. "I'll do my best," he said, and left to get dressed.

*

"God, did you hear that?" Terence asked once the curtain fell for the second act. "They love you."

Darren grinned at Geoffrey. "All the way through, yes."

"You're going to make me cry if you keep going like that," Geoffrey said, and thumped him affectionately on the shoulder. "Or you'll make Rosencrantz cry, if that's any better. You and your ice-cold postulates."

"Speaking of crying, I'd better check on Chris and his broken heart." Darren winked at Geoffrey and ducked backstage.

Chris was sitting with Jason, and they both got to their feet when Darren came into the tiny dressing room. "That was fantastic."

"Don't, it's not over yet." Darren raised his eyebrows at Chris. "Are you ready to die?"

"Ready and willing." The distraction of performance had apparently worked its magic on him; his eyes were a little red, but no one could see that even from the first row.

"Good, good." Darren nodded to them. "Just -- checking in."

"Right, of course." Jason put his arm around Darren's shoulders and came with him to the next stop -- the players. "Just what did you say to him?" he asked sotto voce.

There were far too many possible answers for that. "To whom?"

"Terence." Jason let him go and shook his head. "I was expecting him to be off, but --" he shook his head. "The kid came back from his vacation just full of zip."

"I didn't, really." Darren shrugged. "Maybe Geoffrey managed some words of wisdom, but I mostly threatened his life."

Jason laughed and rolled his eyes. "Sure, I can see that. And Geoffrey told him it was all going to be all right."

Darren spread his hands. "Don't mess with success, you know?"

"Right. God, that crowd --" Jason grinned. "I can't wait to get out there again."

 

*

"I can't think of anything original. I'm only good in support."

"I'm sick of making the running," Darren snapped, and Geoffrey practically cowered. No -- Geoffrey would never say such a thing or look so frightened. Rosencrantz.

"It must be your dominant personality," and Darren laughed at that, had to, though it made it all the worse when Geoffrey bit his lip and bowed his head. "Oh, what's going to become of us!"

We'll make fools of ourselves, or heroes, or both. Darren took his hands and kissed him. The audience shifted in their seats; someone catcalled. "Don't cry, it's all right." Another kiss, and that one they hadn't precisely rehearsed. "There, there. I'll see we're all right."

As if Guildenstern could, any more than Darren could.

But that was all he could say.

*

"I -- I bet you all the money I've got that the year of my birth doubled is an odd number." Rosencrantz took his hand -- rehearsed, but the squeeze was distracting.

And then it was perfect. "No --" Darren looked at the ceiling, at the lights, at the sky above the boat they weren't on.

"Your birth!"

Darren shoved him and Geoffrey fell easily, making it look clumsier than it could ever be, not with Geoffrey. "We've traveled too far, and our momentum has taken over." He knelt by Geoffrey's side, swallowed, and worked to project the next line. "We move idly towards eternity, without possibility of reprieve or hope of explanation."

Geoffrey sat up, his smile manic-bright. "Be happy." He kissed Darren, and this time the audience shifted and sighed. With them. "If you're not even happy what's so good about surviving?" He stood and offered Darren a hand up, brushing himself off. "We'll be all right." He laced their fingers together. "I suppose we just go on."

*

They went on, and there was applause in gratifying amounts, and they went off.

"Every time I see this play, the homoerotic text becomes more present," Professor Frost said, and took Darren by the arm as he blinked. "How did you convince him?"

Darren waved a hand, reaching for something vague enough to suit Frost. "Arguing from the text, with all its abstraction and loss -- the clinging together against adversity, and the impossibility of completion -- the interpretation was obvious."

Frost raised his eyebrows. "I don't generally agree with that sort of reading, but you sold me in both roles." He offered Darren his hand. "Bravo."

Darren shook his hand firmly until Terence hugged him from behind and pulled him away by brute force. "You were great!" he said, and more softly, but not softly enough, "God, that must have been fun to practice."

"Not half as much fun as the flailing around in empty space pretending to go somewhere." Darren disentangled himself and grinned at Terence. "You were wonderful, every night you were here."

Terence's wince was all the revenge he needed at that point. "Thanks."

"There you are." Geoffrey put his arm around Darren's shoulders and steered him through the crowd, away from Terence. "Mister Welles, I found him."

"Ah, of course." A thin man in a well-cut suit took Darren's hand and shook it. "Oliver Welles. Good to meet you, Darren."

"You, too." Darren smiled and tried to place the name. "Ah -- you worked with Jack Dean, three -- no, was it four years ago?"

Oliver smiled, his English pleasantries expanding into something slightly more sincere. "Four, yes, of course, how is Jack? God, that was a hell of a summer -- three apprentices and a principal down with mono." He winked at Darren. "Good thing we weren't putting on your staging, or that'd be two out of the running."

"Why is everyone so hung up on the kisses?" Geoffrey asked, as if he didn't know perfectly well, the disingenuous fool -- but he carried on, and Oliver Welles, whose theatre company was struggling but keeping afloat, listened with an expression Darren knew all too well. "The real point of it is the affection -- the romance, if you want to call it that -- that adds another layer of support, and another layer of tragedy. They're lost, and they have nothing but each other in a world that somehow makes even less sense than ours does. Of course they're going to hold on to the only other person who makes sense in their abstraction." Geoffrey brushed at his t-shirt. "The only other person who could possibly understand what it's like to be that trapped is right there, and maybe he's annoying, and maybe he's overbearing, but they're each other's only constant. Of course they fall in love." He smiled as if the whole thing had just occurred to him.

"Till death do us part," Darren said, but Oliver wasn't listening to him at all.

"I'm glad I came back to see the other casting," Oliver said. "It was --" he shook his head "-- magnificent."

"What night did you see?" Darren asked.

"Oh, last night." Oliver smiled and completely missed Darren's mouth falling open. "A shame about Hamlet -- I would've enjoyed seeing him twice, rather than that stumbling understudy."

Darren cleared his throat and carefully did not ask whether Oliver had also hit his head, taken strong drugs, or impaired his judgment in some other way. It had taken all of his strength and Geoffrey's constant urging to keep going the night before.

Apparently it had paid off, in some way, for one of them; Oliver gave Geoffrey his card -- and Darren schooled his expression when Oliver handed him one as well. "Let me buy you a drink when this crush settles down," Oliver said. "The bar just off campus -- around the corner, you know?"

"Of course," Geoffrey said, and tucked the card into his costume pocket barely in time for Oliver to clasp his hand again.

"Go, talk to your adoring fans." Oliver smiled at them both, shook Darren's hand in a much more perfunctory fashion, and wandered off, shouting greetings at a nearby professor.

*

Sunday morning dawned unseen by human eye as far as Darren was concerned. Ten-o'clock was a much more reasonable hour for waking, even with a matinee and closing looming on the horizon. He managed not to talk to Geoffrey through most of the morning, but when they went to the theatre to prepare, Eric had things to do and they were, for a brief, blissful moment, idle.

"One more show." Geoffrey sighed, then gave Darren a searching look. "Are you up to this?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

Geoffrey shrugged. "Does it hurt to ask?"

"Sometimes." Darren frowned and went back to looking in any direction but at him. "Terence royally fucked over your Guildenstern last time."

"He wasn't the only one."

It was time and past time to admit that it was incredibly difficult to ignore Geoffrey, particularly when he sounded amused and contrite at the same time. When Darren glanced at him, he had his fingers on his hip, just where there might be a bruise. "I didn't fuck you over. Mind your prepositions."

"Over and over, I would've said." Geoffrey licked his lower lip. "I'm still not dating you."

"What else is new? Someone land on the moon? That amazing thing known as 'fire' invented yet in your little world?" Darren scowled. "I don't remember ever asking you on a date."

"Out to dinner, several times. To the movies. To shows --" Geoffrey whistled softly. "So many shows."

Darren sniffed. "And I never brought you roses or chocolates, so no wonder you're such a lousy boyfriend."

"I'll miss you, you asshole. Not next week, but -- you're the only person who's willing to go to anything Shakespearean with me anymore."

"Because I'm not afraid to elbow you." Darren put his hands on his hips. "And you deserve it."

"I'm not the only one. What about that freshman workshop, last year --"

"God, the rape of Juliet." Darren rolled his eyes. "Must you remind me?"

"The only reason the house manager didn't drag you out of there by your ear was that I kept shushing you."

"Kicking me." Darren gave him a look over his glasses that made Geoffrey start laughing. "Don't try to deny it."

"Why would I? But --" Geoffrey waved a hand. "This is our last real production, too. The last show."

"Don't get drippy until it's over." Darren pushed his glasses up. "Neither of these men would cry."

"Do you remember what you said to me the other night?" Geoffrey asked, stepping squarely into his personal space. "When we were ridiculously inebriated?"

"In between 'Heads' and 'To tell you the truth, I'm relieved,' I can quote you chapter and verse, but other than that --" Darren frowned. "No."

Geoffrey touched his shoulder. "Good. I was afraid I'd confessed everything in a drunken haze."

"I remember perfectly fucking well what you said the morning after." Darren looked at his hand, then at his face. "You're a fickle bastard, Tennant."

"I'm really not -- that's the problem." Geoffrey sighed and kissed his cheek while Darren gave him every chance to back out of it. "Just don't jump me in front of anyone, all right?"

"You're assuming I want to jump you at all." Darren glared at him, but it was entirely too hard to keep up the façade. "Someday when you assume that, you're going to be wrong."

"I'm sure you'll tell me to fuck off, then." Geoffrey grinned. "You don't have any trouble doing that."

Darren kissed him lightly. "I'll have to practice doing it so you believe me."

"It'll be a moot point soon. We'd better get dressed."

"Only if I get to watch you."

Geoffrey laughed. "If you want."

Darren grinned at him. "Your eyeliner was a little smudged last night. I'll help."

"I was in a hurry."

"Excuses, excuses."

*

During intermission, Jason caught Darren backstage and said, "It's going so well."

"Yes," though the zing of the previous night was missing, along with the full house. "But I have rounds to make. I'd better check in with our ladies, just in case."

Jason's eyes widened. "God, Syl would have a fit if she heard you say it like that. Watch your step."

Darren put his finger to his lips. "I'll be careful."

Sylvia was in her dressing room and Geoffrey was in her arms -- for all of two seconds before he said, "Jesus, what was that for?" and laughed, the same cruel and yet familiar way he did at Darren sometimes.

"God, what a show, you give me five lines and I feel like I really am queen." Sylvia smiled at him and reached out to touch the smeared line of his lips. "Shit, I messed you up."

Darren cleared his throat just before she made contact. "I'll do worse damage later if you don't fix it -- and do it right this time."

Geoffrey grinned at him -- not looking guilty, whether or not he should, just -- fond. Almost relieved, though it was too early in the play for anyone to be entirely relieved. "I'll take care of it," he said, and went into the hall, squeezing Darren's shoulder as he passed.

Sylvia picked up her hat and waved it at Darren. "This damn thing gives me more trouble," she said, and reached for her hatpins. "Not that I'd be anywhere else if they paid me to do it, right now. You know that groan, every time I enter? I blame you for it." She secured the hat firmly. "And this damn thing."

Darren looked at her reflection and grinned. "Yes, and what a reaction. Before you even open your mouth."

"All because you have no fucking taste." Sylvia itched the corner of her eye with a delicate finger. "Except in costars you end up kissing."

It would be entirely too easy to tell her something like the truth, to make her see Geoffrey as the flawed, frightened man he actually was, anything to make her tell all of her little friends. "It's a play, darling," Darren said. "With a message, but just a play -- and I'd better get to my mark." Darren waved and left her there, heading for Eric's backstage table.

"Geoffrey was here ten minutes ago, and everything is still fine." Eric was frowning at his script, but he wasn't waving his hands; Darren believed him.

"The real reason to share direction," Darren said. "There's only so much intermission."

Eric nodded and said, "You have two minutes."

Geoffrey said, "Ah, I'm early?" from behind Darren.

Darren grabbed the rainbow sleeve of his shirt. "Don't go looking for Sylvia. We have to get to our marks while the crowd settles."

"Let's go, then." Geoffrey took hold of his sleeve in turn, as if the symmetry made the gesture less ridiculous, and they walked onto the stage together.

**Author's Note:**

> Followed a goodly number of years later by [Two loves I have of comfort and despair](http://archiveofourown.org/works/25445).


End file.
